Guild Wars 2

Zania.8461:

I think this post has value. It gives a glance at the damage outputs on a non min-maxer with un-optimized builds/gear/consumables/rotations. Which is to say, pretty much an average person you pick up in an open world and honestly trying to do their best.

this is exactly what I tried to do here
Thank you

Gyler.8150:

Isn’t ranger with torch like second best damage with an easy rotation?

it does pretty good damage, but I cant get very high dps uptime on it.
Also it is VERY stationairy and therefore almost useless in the jungle where everything is moving and you still have to be in melee range which is also very dangerous.

Thaddeus.4891:

These numbers are not worth much sorry.

1) What are the builds? How can we give any credits to this ranking without knowing the build. If you use a terrible build one profession, how can we know? Did you use the right sigil, runes, weapons?

2) You only used condition damage, which is pretty useless. For exemple, guardian is pretty low, but do a lot of direct damage too. Same with Engineer. On the other end, a Scepter Elementalist will have very low direct damage so even if you put him high on the condition damage list, his overall dps will be pretty low.

3) It’s not because you are difficulty to perform the engineer rotation that it will be the same for everybody. What is casual for you? Maybe on the scale you are a terrible engineer, maybe you are just normal, maybe you are decent. We don’t know, so your numbers are only good for you.

4) Ranger is the second best Condition build for PvE right now. Why did you put it so low? You probably didn’t use the right rotation. Did you made sure to swap weapons before using bonfire? Quick Draw is really important for that skill. Did you use the right build? These numbers are questionable. You really really need more transparency about your numbers. Video or at least builds are a must.

1. The ranking is just what I personally tested, you can assume that I tested every class with diffrent builds trying to get the maximum out of it. If you have a build that can do more dps let us know! Also we can talk about the builds I used if you want.

2. yes I focused on condition damage only, this thread is not about best dps overall.
But one thing I have to say is that scepter ele does really good direct damage on scepter with skill 2 and 3 on a very low cooldown, similar to a guardians damage imo.

3. I guess I am not that good when it comes to engineer condi builds as I find them pretty hard to execute, espeically in the jungle where melee is dangerous and everything constantly moves.. maybe I am just bad at it though.

4. I am not saying Ranger does low damage, yes I did the weapon swap build and yes I do get 4-5K burnings on the target if it stands still (we can talk more about the build if you want), but while testing it in the jungle I came to realize that it is pretty hard to get high burning on a target because they are moving so much. In addition to that I had a hard time surviving because you need to be on top of the enemys to deal damage, which is really dangerous in the jungle too.. there fore it is not really viable for me I think.. It is still good in fraktals and stuff, but not for the content to come..

Note: writing this from a cellphone right now, so there will be Grammar issues for now thanks to autocorrect, editing it later today

Hey guys,
I dont think Heart of Thorns really changed anything for condition builds, but I still spend the Last 2 days trying to find my favorite condition damage class.
I have played an tested all classes trying to get the most dps while half the time playing casually in pve, with mostly exotic gear and no buff food whatsoever beeing in the jungle or doing fractals, and spend the other time in pvp attacking Golems to get compareable results.

Before i share my results with you I want to make clear that:
-i tested all this trying to play casual and still get high numbers without going through crazy rotations, which defenitly has a somewhat high impact in specific classes.
-numbers are not crazy high, because again i did it with exotic gear and no buff Food
-i was aiming for highest sustained dps on a Single target! So not just the highest achieveable Brust number, but rather i was going for an average numbers that i saw on screen for about 30sec-1min.

Also I am VERY interested in your opinions and what you think can achieve high numbers!

Number 1

Mesmer
Average condi dps over 1 min: 5-7k
Surprising, yes.. But i think with the recent changes to minions Not beeing damaged by aoes the Mesmer can do serious damage with a staff and his clones without even attacking himself.
Illusions litterally do not die and therefore Not only do Great amounts of damage but have the best dps uptime in my opinion so far, because you can Focus on dodging or what ever you want while you always have 75% dps uptime.
I focused in bleeding, getting up to 8k bleeds supported by 1-2k burning most consistantly

Number 2

Elementalist
Average condi dps: 5k
I focused on burning with scepter/dagger.
Obviously you can get 3k dps by just pressing 2 every 4 sec. But also the autoattack with a Chance of 3 burning stacks per crit is really nice.
So you can have pretty Easy dps, and in Addition to that ele also has pretty high Burst from Utilities if you Need it, i got up to 10k burnings for splitseconds.

Number 3

Necro
Average condi dps: 5k
The necro really shines in aoe scenarios, Single Target though it really only has bleed with no Burst and a kinda Slow Build-up..

Number 4

Engi
Average condi dps: 3-4k
I know I know, what only number 4?
I know that engi has the highest possible condi dps and really high Burst Too.. BUT.. The rotations are just to much for me, i tried to learn it and it is possible for me to reach the Super high dps numbers but for a Casual player like me i dont think These numbers are reachable all the Time.. Also i think it is really stationairy and really Hard to execute when enemys are moving.

Number 5

Guardian
Average condi dps 3k
Guardian has really high Burst burnings but lacks in dps.. He can dish out 8k burnings in 2 sec but they only Last for 4 sec and then there is only the autoattack burning which ele does better..

Number 6-9
Warrior
Thief
Ranger
Revenant

I think These 4 are not really worth playing a condi Build right now.

I really tried making burn warrior a thing.. But it really only is a Bad Guardian at best

Thief just Lacks in bleed duration and applications..

Ranger requires even more stationairy play then engineer.. Shortbow is Not very effective too.

Revenant is melee only for condition AND has torment as Main condition.. Making it not really effective in any scenario.

So what so you guys think? Did you have similar experiences?
Do you have any suggestions?
Let me know!

displacedTitan.6897:

Yes his analogy was totally ridiculous and very poorly thought out. It made my day as well.
As if doing jumping jacks was GRINDING… I LOVE jumping jacks and thus it isn’t GRINDING to me. Wearing those 3D glasses though is GRINDY just to watch the ENDING of the movie that I PAID for! The nerve of them! Why would you RUIN my movie with those 3D glasses after giving me some AMAZING jumping jacks!!!!!!!!!

well if you think that the 3D glasses should be the end of the movie.. I think they should help enjoy the movie experience..

Tapioca.9062:

The best part is that they told me I actually had to do four hundred jumping jacks but because I was doing them at that cinema every jumping jack actually counted for ten. What a bargain, right? They also told me that the two-hundred jumping jacks I’d done earlier would give me access to half of the 3D glasses. It was a pretty exciting day.

I love you <3

Tapioca.9062:

displacedTitan.6897:

I remember the last time I went to a movie, I DEMANDED that they show me the ending right away because that’s what I really wanted. Instead they FORCED me to GRIND the rest of the movie before showing me the ending that I PAID for. I cant believe people would do this! They are ruining their movie! Turning it into nothing but a GRINDY CASH GRAB!!!!!!

I was just thinking of that time I had to do 20 – 40 jumping jacks before I was allowed to have my 3D glasses. And then I had to see the movie nine different times. What an absolute delight of an experience that wasn’t a chore at all.

hahahahahaha made my day, thank you. :’D
so rediculous..

DoctorDing.5890:

Anyhow, getting back to the point. I fully support the OP’s right to cry about something that the OP considers to be unreasonable, even though it is not unreasonable.

Maybe the devs will see the OP’s endlessly bitter complaining and take the opportunity to spend the remaining 17 hours before launch reworking the whole game to meet the OP’s short-sighted requirements.

it is short sighted yes.. in the long run the system is great.. but in the early week of launch, what 50% of all people will do is ignore all content and farm HP in maguuma instead of ejoying it, because it is possible to do so.. and you want to tell me that this is reasonable design?
I can only say it again, if it was locked behind a story gate I would be fine with it, so I could play and enjoy, but the sole fact that you can rush the content to get it early is why people will do exactly that..
If it is possible people will do it…

Ranael.6423:

Smokin Dice.9103:

because YOU CAN DO IT IN 10 MIN!.. but you have to rush through all the contant.. so more then 50% of all people will do that.. and that is BAD.

What?!!! assumptions again ? Ok I should stop caring then

how is that an assumptoin? you get HoT, you go into the jungle, you only do HP, you ignore any other contant in there, you get the elite, done. (repeat 8 times)

thats stupid design in my opinion…

Shademehr.1397:

Smokin Dice.9103:

Shademehr.1397:

Smokin Dice.9103:

I need FOUR HUNDRED points total to unlock my herold?

That is false.

You only need 60 HP to unlock the Herald. Additional HP will be required to gain access to the rest of the skills. Without actually having any facts yet on which items/traits/skins/etc are available at which HP level, it could very well be that the higher HP cost items in each specialization are actually cosmetic, etc.

I already changed that.. sorry.
but you still need over 200 points to unlock all skills and traits as confirmed by Colin himself

That may not be true either. We don’t know that. All we know is that IF you have completed all the hero challenges, in the normal base game it will cost 200ish points to unlock the complete “elite spec training line”. This line will include things besides traits. It will include unique skins (for example, a staff and helmet for Dare Devil) and possibly things like sigils and runes (or recipes) too. It’s entirely possible that we may be able to fully unlock the actual skills with only 100ish HP. That’s 10 hero challenges in the new maps.

I’m not saying you’re wrong here, you may be right. (heck i may even be wrong, lots of info and inaccuracies swirling around) But lets not get all caught up in the anti-hype and reserve judgement for when we actually have a chance to see for ourselves in the actual game.

I think you might have missed colins post yesterday..
to unlock EVERYTHING from an elite (runes, skins etc.) it will take 400 points..
the only information we got from colin about “skills and tratis” is that it will take MORE then 200 points to unlock them..
so to play a core elite spec and not going for the fancy stuff you’ll need at least 201 hp

CobaltSixty.1542:

Smokin Dice.9103:

The Problem is within Anet itself.
They only think about the end result, but not how people will get there or what will be prioritized…

Pretty sure they thought about how people were going to get there and the prevailing consensus was not 10 minutes into day one.

you dont see the problem though.. because YOU CAN DO IT IN 10 MIN!.. but you have to rush through all the contant.. so more then 50% of all people will do that.. and that is BAD.
either lock it behind something reasonable or dont lock it at all….

Fadhli.9086:

WOW! Much like buying a cheeseburger but instead of enjoying it, one looks forward to bowel movement way before digestion happens, then rages because nothing is coming out.

its more like French-fried potatoes with ketchup and mayonaise..
I want to FIRST pick up a fry and then slowly dip it in either ketchup or mayonaise.. and dont want my fries to be burried beneath, and soaked up with ketchup and mayonaise mixed.
I want to play as I want, I dont want to eat all ketchup and mayonaise before I can even see a fry..

The Problem is within Anet itself.
They only think about the end result, but not how people will get there or what will be prioritized…

Shademehr.1397:

Smokin Dice.9103:

I need FOUR HUNDRED points total to unlock my herold?

That is false.

You only need 60 HP to unlock the Herald. Additional HP will be required to gain access to the rest of the skills. Without actually having any facts yet on which items/traits/skins/etc are available at which HP level, it could very well be that the higher HP cost items in each specialization are actually cosmetic, etc.

I already changed that.. sorry.
but you still need over 200 points to unlock all skills and traits as confirmed by Colin himself

SamTheGuardian.2938:

No one wants the Elite spec to be their prize for completing HoT, we all want to play HoT with the Elite Specs. So for those who have not done world competition learning that we have to play though about 70% of HoT before being able to max trait lines and play the spec is infuriating.

As you will learn over the coming days, what the OP is planning to do Everyone else will be doing also!!! People want the Elite Specs. Yes we want the new maps and story narrative too, but for most the Elite Specs are the biggest part of what lured us in. Even for those who want the story a good number want to experience HoT from the beginning playing as something new. For they will hop on the train of players who jump in and do nothing but grind hero challenges for the first few weeks (or months for the more casuals) before unlocking their Elite Spec then go back and do the instanced story.

pretty much all this..
you maybe just said it better then I could..

Ranael.6423:

Smokin Dice.9103:

there are no assumptions.. only facts.. and these facts will ruin my gaming experience.. since I have to spoil myself of contant I wanted to enjoy slowly

Well you first assumed you would be able to use a full Espec directly after launch. As far as I understand this is where you are disappointed…

I assumed that I would be able to unlock all skills and trait if I farm all HP in oldtyria for a whole day with my revenant, yes… but now I am forced to go into the jungle and rush to the first HP even if I dont want to

BrotherBelial.3094:

CobaltSixty.1542:

Gotta have everything immediately, am I right guys?

^This.

why is it people feel these day’s that playing a game involves nothing other than playing what they want to play. They don’t want to level, they don’t want to progress, they want everything from the word go. They want everything handed to them, then some of them will say the game is too easy, or boring and that there is nothing to do.

I think you might have missed the point here.. I DONT want to rush the contant, In fact I was preparing for not even visiting the new contant at launch so I can get my herold first and THEN enjoy the jungle in all its beauty.. but because I cant do that anymore I am FORCED to go to the jungle to get my herold, so if I want to be a herold and also want to play halloween maybe.. I HAVE TO get the jungle Heropoints first..

Kaligos.7285:

Ranael.6423:

OP be ready to be disappointed again because chances are you won’t be able to rush hero point in the jungle without doing any content. You will certainly have to boost some masteries to get access to all the needed hero challenge.
You wanted to enjoy the content? You’ll better do it because I really believe you won’t be able to unlock your herald build by rushing the content.

Pretty much this.

I am in fear of that too.. I think there will be no Herold for me any time soon…

DoctorDing.5890:

You haven’t had a HoT experience yet so how can it be ruined.
You are QQ’ing based on a smattering of facts and a whole truckload of assumptions and guesswork.

there are no assumptions.. only facts.. and these facts will ruin my gaming experience.. since I have to spoil myself of contant I wanted to enjoy slowly

So after some struggles I was fine with farming hero points for the elite.. and I was okay with farming hp with my rev at launch day.. farming about 60-80 points to unlock core skills and traits..
but now you tell me I need OVER TWO HUNDRED points to unlock the basics of my herold?
so there is no point at all to run through oldtyria at launchday because I can barely get HALF points of what I need..
so what will I do on launch day?
Make my reventant, enter the jungle and rush to all the HP, ignoring every new contant I see (which I actually wanted to enjoy), just rushing through everything to get my 10hp each time until I get all the core things I need to play revenant.. and then I have kinda seen everything already but did not had the time to enjoy it.. yeah.. sounds like a lot of fun for tomorrow…
Thanks..

EDIT: you made the greatest game, you make the right balance changes nowadays.. but when it comes to knowledge of how people actually play your game and what is important to them, time and time again you show us that you have no clue about how gamers play your game or new contant for that matter..
we want the new stuff and we want it fast, its okay to have it behind some softlock like playing the game or unlocking stuff through the story.. but hiding new stuff behind an old system that is REQUIRED placed in a new map? thats neither smart thinking nor is it a fun experience to play.. EVERYONE will ignore the great new map you made, because we only care for the old system in there (HP)

Soooooo.. did I get exactly what I asked for?

-minons taking 95% reduced damage from all non directly targeted attacks

Guess I need to thank you again Anet, really making the right changes to the game nowadays.
feel free to hire me for the balancing team

“Bounding Dodger” should softlock on your target and try to jump right on top of it, instead of jumping over it when standing right in front of the target

bow still needs more damage, especially skill 2

and gyros will continue to be bad in comparison to every other utility skill a engineer has..
I can only say it again..
give them skills instead of blowing them up,
make them untargetable and remove hp entirely,
give them tiny weapons to shoot while up..

My only trouble with it is the persistant blue background circle.
it should just be the glint symbol beneath you, there is no need for this permanent blue circle that just looks like a 2001-game-icon

My only trouble with it is the persistant blue background circle.
it should just be the glint symbol beneath you, there is no need for this permanent blue circle that just looks like a 2001-game-icon

wow I never thought of this, but I would actually had fun playing with spirit weapons if they also started their cd when summoned

lol ok, never doing that again… I guess I take it back then.. bad game..

Agemnon.4608:

The problems with WASD are many:

1.You can only move in big circles instead of smaller ones.
2.mouse gives much faster turning.
3.Mouse turning enables far more flexible and intuitive use of keys. The QWERTASDFGHZXCVB keys are within easy convenient distance of homerow, so if you need to use a skill you can press one of these buttons. I bind A to autoattack.
4.WASD is only limited by the four cardinal directions. Even a very old-school console controller does better than that:

http://videogamecritic.com/images/systems/gencontroller.jpg

Action combat like what Phantasy Star Online 2 has can only really work with a controller, and even that has inferior movement to a mouse where movement flexibility is maximized.

many people might not realize this yet.. but this will change the game and how it will play completely.

It won’t be the game I paid for and if I wanted that crap I’d play Tera instead.

first of all if you are not using wasd for movement already you are doing it wrong.. I mean you can play like this.. but it will cripple your overall reaction time.

secondly the turn rate will not be influenced in any way, having action mode on is like holding rightclick by default (which again you should already do 99% of the time)

and lastly and most important, if you dont like it, you dont have to use it..

Agemnon.4608:

So anyway to enable mouse movement with the “action” camera? Mouse targeting is pointless if you can’t even move.

no you wont be able to, but thats the whole point of this, getting a action based combat you will need to use WASD to play it

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Action camera mode will get you slaughtered in WvW and Pvp… only benefits one game mode and even that is situational and that is open world pve… just sayin…

I disagree, ever fought an asura minion nekro for example? try “tabing” to target him or try to click on him just to target him, its not always that easy.
With Action mode you only need to SEE him, and then just point and shoot to hit him.

many people might not realize this yet.. but this will change the game and how it will play completly.

I will even try out granade engi for the first time because I am not forced to constanly press 1111 while targeting at the same time

Let me just say one name.. Joel Helmich
Anet, promote this guys, seriously.

So maybe you can guess now what this thread will be about.. action camera mode!

The most fun I ever had actually PLAYING an mmo was when I played Tera online, the game wasnt the best, but its combat system was AMAZING, it felt live and reactive and was so action based that you basically could not get bored of combat.

I started GW2 in beta and stayed because it was by far the best MMO because it had the best mechanics, story and gameplayfeatures, but I did get bored sometimes, so much so that when I was fighting tequatl for example Id just go afk for a moment to make myself a tea or something and just sit there auto attacking or when fighting a boss just pressing 23452345 and auto attack because it felt repetitive sometimes.
And I occasionally go back to tera when I just want to have fun and wanted to feel like actually fighting myself.

I had dreams about having my favorite playstyle in my favorite game..
and Joel Helmich made it happen, if he really came up with this and did most of this by himself he is my new favorite person in the world.

As I was watching Guildchat and he toggled on the action cam I litterally cried a little inside, not only that but as I was watching I came up with question I wanted to ask and concerenes I had, like
-can I hold left mouse button to attack
-can I still lock on a target
-will ground targeting work smoothly
but this guy… he answered ALL of this question in the stream with YES, showed how it works and explained it.
He did everything I ever wanted and more, he even managed to implement this feature BETTER then tera did think (I will need to test everything out myself).

This feature alone maybe making you more money then HoT alone will, I immediately told my friends about this, and when it goes live there will be 5 more people playing this game just from me and I am sure me and my friends are not the only ones loving this type of combat, because this combat system IS the future of every good MMO and GW2 combat will feel so good and action based now.
GuildWars 2 is basically the perfect MMORPG now combining everything from the king mmo WoW, from niche but fun to actually play mmos like tera and gw2’s own concepts and story which is actually the best part about this game.

THANK YOU Anet, THANK YOU Joel Helmich

just one question left, when can we play with this?

[Mod Edit: Removed inappropriate content]

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Total AP gain: 500

only 500?
I thought it would be alot more..
how come so many people run around with 12-20k ap then?
I thought it had to do with gw1

I dont know much else I can do in gw2 for ap ^^

Ausfer.1853:

Okay, call me crazy, but why do you need achievement points so badly that you’re considering putting down 30 bucks on a 10 year old MMO that will need to be played for hours upon hours?

Because I have done alot of the ap in gw2 already and want more unlocks of the skins and other stuff, also I need to kill some time until HoT releases.. so if it would be worth my time to get some ap in gw1 meanwhile Id be happy to support Anet some more and also maybe get a better look at the story and what happend in the past.

Hey guys,
as the topic suggests I was wondering if it is worth my time to buy gw1 for ap in gw2.

-I never played gw1 and started with gw2, 3 years ago
-how many ap can I get from gw1?
-what other stuff do I get from gw1 for gw2?
-is it worth my time?

-bow does overall to little damage
-bow 1 does nothing on single target and does laughable damage
-bow 2 does way to little damage and forces you to stand still, damage should be increased by 50% and I am not even joking, it should feel rewarding to play DH and even with a 50% damage increase it woud not keep up with other dps classes right now
-bow 3 should not be a skillshot and should just shoot the selected target as you want to destroy a projectile by the target you are fighting 99% of the time and it takes extra time to be cast this way
-bow 4 and 5 are ok I guess, could deal more damage though

-Traps still suck and therefore should get a ~10% damage increase and the elite trap should get at least a 20% damage increase as it should deal more damage then the normal traps..
-the vultrap should also immobilize maybe as it is the most useless of them atm and will see no play whatsoever in its current form

-to make traps more fun to use and more support the “hunter” kind of gameplay there could be a fun minor trait (as they all are kinda meh right now) that makes you invisible while standing still and having a trap out. maybe merge it into the trap trait.
this would make for some fun moments in pvp

this is all on the Dragon Hunter, will probably see no play as Scepter will still do more damage.
it is my 2nd most disliked elite the way it is right now.
bow should deal much more damage as a bow is the most deadly weapon ever created by humanity. it shouldnt be hundred blades but it should be at least on par with killshot, if warrior is better with a GS then guardian, then let guardian that specalizes in bows at least be better with a bow then warrior with a rifle….

really quick feedback.

-hammer 1 does to little damage.
other skills on the hammer are awesome

-everything about the drones are still bad and no one will ever use them like that
-AI is TERRIBLE on the drones
-utility and damage is laughable
-their health, duration AND cooldown are way to many drawbacks

this is how they could be:
-they need to NOT have health (since they are already running on a duration)
-need to ALWAYS be right beside you and dont have AI(like the revenant assassins healdagger they should float next to you)
-they should fire a small gun while floating next to you that does very little damage
-instead of having an active explosion skill, they should have an active abillity which is basiacally the thing they are doing now when summoned

this is all on the scrapper, would only play as a flamethrower and never bother about drones and only slightly on hammer.
it is my 3rd most disliked elite the way it works right now.
if drones were actually good and viable this wouldve been my favorite elite…
drones are just a pure disapointment, buffs wont help, they need rework

I was going to make a whole thread about it, but might as well give it my two cents here..

-hammer 1 does to little damage.
other skills on the hammer are awesome

-everything about the drones are still bad and no one will ever use them like that
-AI is TERRIBLE on the drones
-utility and damage is laughable
-their health, duration AND cooldown are way to many drawbacks

this is how they could be:
-they need to NOT have health (since they are already running on a duration)
-need to ALWAYS be right beside you and dont have AI(like the revenant assassins healdagger they should float next to you)
-they should fire a small gun while floating next to you that does very little damage
-instead of having an active explosion skill, they should have an active abillity which is basiacally the thing they are doing now when summoned

this is all on the scrapper, would only play as a flamethrower and never bother about drones and only slightly on hammer.
it is my 3rd most disliked elite the way it works right now.
if drones were actually good and viable this wouldve been my favorite elite…
drones are just a pure disapointment, buffs wont help, they need rework

Engineer

- Flamethrower getting a dmg increase on the autoattack.

This is why I actually love the devs of this game..
sometimes it feels like they are not listinig to us, and then they come up with just a minor change like this for the upcoming patch and it instantly feels rewarding again to play this game.
I was begging for this change for years as flamethrower is by FAR my favorite weapon in the whole game and now with this and the elite spec scrapper I AM.. truly.. BECOMING THE JUGGERNAUT! >:D
and maybe wont get kicked for using the flamethrower….

Stalima.5490:

wont a flame scrapper be op tho… i mean to say, double stacking might, double passive health regen (without regeneration)amongst other crazy bonuses

yes, it does sound great in theory.. the problem is though that the flamethrower skill 1, even with 25 stacks of might, will do sooo little dps its not even funny.
flamethrower 1 needs a buff, maybe like 200-400 increase base damage and a casttime of actually 2 seconds instead of 2 1/2 seconds.
it sure has good survivabillity, but the super low range, slow projectile speed AND low damage on top of that just kills the weapon for dps purposes

Manuhell.2759:

Smokin Dice.9103:

The hammer is as good as a standalone weapon for an engi can be, it litterally has everything important in the game right now, I dont get what makes you think it cant be good standalone.. I even played a rifle engi for a while in pve and pvp which did really good with only 1 kit which I used rarely.
Hammer is good in any fashion, sure sometimes you want to do range damage, but THEN you can still switch to a range kit or rifle before the fight.
the problem we need to solve is making other utillitys better so that you dont feel the need to have a kit, which has nothing to do with the hammer beeing bad, but damage rotations, dps and versatillity. if you had better gyros, for example (this will be just an OP example to makes things clear) If you had 5 gyros out that would each fire rockets every 2 seconds that would deal 4k per hit on 1200 range, you would have no problems with hammer and never switching it, because it feels rewarding that you have super strong damage support from behind…

Apart from the autoattack it seems a solid weapon. That is to say, assuming it won’t get nerfed during the bwe.
And it may well be if they follow that design of not making engineers’ weapon good enough standalone just due to the possibility of using them with kits, essentially ending up forcing people to use kits to make up for the shortcomings (shortcomings that are there…due to the existence of the kits themselves).
That’s what i’m bothered with. The class was designed to be forced to use kits, using up utility slots in doing so, and balanced everything toward the use of kits.
So unless something ends up being more situationally useful than what a kit can offer – usually because that’s something that a kit can’t do – and with a good degree of reliability,something that turrets (when used as proper turrets) and gyro right now can’t afford, then people will just use kits.

yes, that is the sole purpose of this thread..
so they make it that you are NOT forced to use Kits alltime err’time

and doing this through propper implementation of gyros.

yeah.. I am doing them now too.. so pls delete this thread before the devs change it and I done all this for nothing

But that is total bullkitten.. I dont want grind all the points which each of my level 80 charackter (who by the way all have 0 hero points because I maxed everything, and dont tell me I should not have done that.. that would be a stupid argument).

and also story wise it is just stupid to implement it this way.. hey so you spend 100 hours to unlock all hero points with your 10 charackter? thats great! here have the elite spec unlocked right at the release of hot for grinding so much…

Unlocking it through the story would have made much more sense…

Thanks to Solaxo though for providing this map, this should be really helpful at least..

Manuhell.2759:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Manuhell.2759:

And that essentially means that elite specializations on the engineer are meaningless by design, since the main weapon can’t be good (again, by design) and the utilities can’t compete with kits either way.

That’s a bit hyperbolic, don’t you think?

Both the rifle and pistol/pistol are incredibly good and slot well into both condition and power builds in PvE and PvP. Pretty much every build we have uses weapon skills off cooldown for maximum DPS or utility, so the idea that weapons are useless because they’re incapable of being ran standalone is ridiculous.

Hyperbolic? Indeed, but not far from the truth.
Sure, we’ve got some skills to use off cooldown…and essentially we use them just because they’re there either way and they aren’t worse than a kit autoattack, but then we’re still back using the same old kits we’ve used since the start of the game for most of the time.

And it will be the same for 2, 3, 4 elite specializations. We will still have the same issue – chained in using the same old kits, despite having many new utilities. Simply because we can’t afford a place for them. Because anything is balanced over kits, and something that should be optional becomes forced instead.

Smokin Dice.9103:

People are going on a rampage now…
Relax and dont focus on the Hammer here.. the hammer is not the problem.

the problem is the viabillity of kits vs other utilitys
and especially gyros now for the scrapper.

no one will use a gyro ever if they are so much more worse then any kit, heck even med kit is better then medic gyro..

they just need to rework the mechanic of their gyros completly to make them anywhere close to a viable option..

right now if you theorycraft a build and a gyro comes up, its like.. HAHAHAHA..no.

Gyros have to be powerful and usefull and reliable to compete with kits..

The hammer is still part of the problem. If it can’t be good standalone, we will need to take kits to complement it. And thus having less slots left for anything else, like gyros.
Essentially, we won’t have a choice to start with.

The hammer is as good as a standalone weapon for an engi can be, it litterally has everything important in the game right now, I dont get what makes you think it cant be good standalone.. I even played a rifle engi for a while in pve and pvp which did really good with only 1 kit which I used rarely.
Hammer is good in any fashion, sure sometimes you want to do range damage, but THEN you can still switch to a range kit or rifle before the fight.
the problem we need to solve is making other utillitys better so that you dont feel the need to have a kit, which has nothing to do with the hammer beeing bad, but damage rotations, dps and versatillity. if you had better gyros, for example (this will be just an OP example to makes things clear) If you had 5 gyros out that would each fire rockets every 2 seconds that would deal 4k per hit on 1200 range, you would have no problems with hammer and never switching it, because it feels rewarding that you have super strong damage support from behind…

hahahaha, no.
Hey men listen, I am one of the greatest defenders of the engineer, you can check for some of my threads in the professions section in the forum, but giving the hammer a blast finisher on auto is not the way to go and it would be way to strong to use anything other then AA on the hammer, no the hammer is fine here.. the gyros are problematic.

what I could see though is a blast finisher on bombkit 1 so it could be good again.. and it would make much more sense..

do we have any canon information about how to unlock the elite specs finally?

if it is through heropoints (as it seems to be through datamining) many people will rage..
I dont want to complete the whole world with each of my characters… dont get me wrong.. Tyria is beautiful.. but I have seen it twice already in all its beauty.. I think that is enough..

forcing us to do this with all characters is just cruel..

I would like to be able to do it by playing through half of maguuma or get the option at half the new story line, so it comes natural and actually feels like you are learning the new ways of fighting.. instead of just wandering the world endlessly and never get to play maguuma because I have to farm the whole map with my revenant first…

People are going on a rampage now…
Relax and dont focus on the Hammer here.. the hammer is not the problem.

the problem is the viabillity of kits vs other utilitys
and especially gyros now for the scrapper.

no one will use a gyro ever if they are so much more worse then any kit, heck even med kit is better then medic gyro..

they just need to rework the mechanic of their gyros completly to make them anywhere close to a viable option..

right now if you theorycraft a build and a gyro comes up, its like.. HAHAHAHA..no.

Gyros have to be powerful and usefull and reliable to compete with kits..

Slaymeding.9584:

Smokin Dice.9103:

Sneak Gyro Elite
Deploy a sneak gyro equipped with a small silenced pistol to provide stealth to nearby allies and has an unstable self-cloakingfield. Shoot only when engi is visible.

Sneak gyro
CD: 30s
Duration: 10s
Invis: 3s
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
Guns Damage: 40
Interval: 1s

“Active”
Cloak
The Sneak Gyro stealthes himself briefly but then explodes
CD: 10s
Duration: 3s

Shooting only when the Engi is visible would cure its flaws right away.Brilliant idea BUT it may collide on itself.

Think of it like that,you get out of stealth it begins shooting.
You decide to get in,it already loaded its shot and you get revealed,since you got revealed it will shoot AGAIN and perpetually reveal you.

just so you know, If you get out of the stealth field and damage an enemy you cant get stealthed by it again eitherway.. it has the same mechanic as shadow refuge in that regard. so once you get out of stealth and attacked an enemy you cant get stealthed by the same abillity again..

yeah just to clarify, it could be like: minions take no(or tied to the necro) AoE damage from non-player sources.
fixed.

Death Scythe.9738:

I think that thematically speaking gyros are fine, please notice the word “thematically”, now after a glance I think that they going to need some work, I really easy way to improve the gyros viability is making it invulnerable to damage and use some sort of fuel system, some cooldowns are a little high overall . Also, it effect need to be more significant (beside sneak gyro).

they are " thematically" awesome.. but its like Hugh Norfolk had the Idea for them (because he is by far the best concept designer on Anet) and then gave that idea to an apprentice designer who has no clue of the game, who then ruined them with these terrible restrictions that makes them worse then turrets….

Hey people
My first response to the PoI showing of the “Scrapper” was pure disappointment, and I already was kinda de-hyped from the blogpost on thursday …

but lets start from the beginning ..

The Hammer
The hammer really was by far the only viable thing I saw yesterday ..

Hammer 1
The autottack of the hammer is besides of its pretty low base damage actually very good, though not particularly originel since they simply used the principle of the Reaper, so we get might 2/3 of our autoatack hitchain, for an okay 8s and inflict 12s of vul to oppenents with 2/3 hits from our autoatack chain, also very useful.

Electro-Whirl
Here we see a borrowed mechanic, this time its from the DH, a reflect with a very short time window.
In addition, this one seems to do pretty good damage in close combat too.
perfectly fine so far.

Rocket Charge
The third skill we finally get something new and sparkling, a leap with not only 1000 range, but also this leap is divided into 3 smaller jumps each of which is a jump finisher (jump finishers are no explosive finishers but still better than Whirl). Note however, if you are already in melee range, this skill really really hurts too.

Shock Shield
Another new mechanic, here we have a nearly 2 seconds block, unlike many other blocks this doesnt just block one attack, no here we have a permanent 1 3/4 seconds and at the same time fireing 4 eltric bolts to nearby enemys.

and finally
Thunderclap
Some scream OP, others say meh … the Scrapper creates an AoE lightningfield that comes with its own minor trait that is not justified at all and immediately stuns enemys for 1s (+1/4s from the trait), the stun in my opinion doesnt need that minor since this provides a QUARTER of a second whch adds little extra time to Scrap opponents .. but again very good damage If the enemys stands inside the aoe and the obvious synergy with finishers from the kit of the scrapper, even if the cooldown of (not shortenable) 24 seconds is a little long.

That concludes the hammer and unfortunately the only useful thing this elite spec brings to the table ..

But WAIT! I hear you cry .. the Functiongyro, the functiongyro is so OP! Op!Op!Op!
Well .. we have not seen it in action, but yes the functiongyro seems to be quite strong, even more so with the trait ..
especially since we as engi have no access to skills that will help us finish an enemy .. something like an elixir that makes us invulnarable, or a combo which stealthes us …… and the silliest part of gyros I’m haven’t even come to yet .. of course you can then also kill the gyro in 2 hits
So this is not a selling point .. and especially since Engi does not need a buff in PvP ..

and I do not want the other Engis a getting a cheap kill off of me with this funny and yet poorly designed skill

What Engi needs are a couple of viable builds in PvE .. and no one in lfg will be like: “ohh yes please an engi so he can resurrect me from very far away.”

Conclusion for Funktionsgyro: Meh.

Now then.. utillity Gyros

I will not go into detail about the individual gyros here at all, because all of them are so (s)crappy it’s not funny anymore .. and thats not even because of their capabilities but to the way HOW and with what THOUGHTS they are integrated into the game.

it is the stuuuuuupidest thing to provide the gyros with “free will” (AI) and then also Hp and then also totally unnecessary skills and then also unnecessary summonings and then also totally unnecessary copypaste turret explosion as active.
AND THEN THESE THINGS CANT EVEN SHOOT !! Why am I an engineer in war if I do not even equip my inventions withmachine guns and rocket launchers ?!
Instead, I am so ashamed of my invention, that I install a self-destruct button so no one will see these flying abominations..
[/insert “Sadgyro.jpg”] _
And dont even get me started on their halfhour cooldowns and limitied lifespan

Conclusion on the Gyros: The Engi has a huge repertoire of versatile skills. And if I develop a new Utillity for a class that already has such an incredibly strong kitten nal, then that has to be something really interesting, useful or just super fun to use.
what is offered in his ELITESPECIALIZATION here is so little useful stuff it makes you wonder if some of the devs even know what this game is about.

The Elite Gyro has exactly the same stupid AI problem and what I think of perma stealth in both PvP and PvE .. not every class have to be invisible ..

The Combofield
Anet loves combofields, literally forcing us here (or not because no one will play with these drones), but honestly .. everything that is not a firefield has no place in PvE .. and what do we not get? correct! a firefield.. we get a water, a poison, a litghning and a superspeed field .. because in PvE fight we run so much and heal so much.. and bosses also always heal themself ..
I admit a clutch heal is potentialy sometimes very good, but engi has the best heal in the game in his Healingturret already (and also a water-field) and to run faster through fractals is nice but out of combat normal swiftness is enough and everyone can boff that theirself
The reflectschield is ok, the gyro unfortunately is completely useless so far.

Final Conclusion: Through this Spec I get a hammer .. .. .. yaaaay..

Edit: oh, and to these people that think of a perma might stacking stabillity Flame Thrower build: No!
as long as it is not buffed, the autoattack on Flamethrowing not suitable for DPS ..

Now to my suggestions, my ideas and to which I actually thought Anet would do it this way.

I’m okay with letting the combofields be combofields .. but give us useful gyros, give us the feeling that it is cooler than 3 weaponkits so that we really want to try them.

Basic changes of gyro-mechanics that are absolutly needed
-Gyros are no units and can not be taargeted.
-Gyros have no AI, they float always in the same place behind, in front or around the Engi (a bit like the healing knife from revenant assassins heal)
-Gyros have no HP. (with the exception of functiongyro)
-Gyros still have a limited time (“fuel”)
-Gyros can not be exploded manually and instead have skills
-Gyros are equipped with various small weapons
-Gyros still explode after the time runs out

I’ll present you, MY versions of the Gyros:

Medic Gyro
Deploy a medic gyro equipped with a small laser to heal nearby allies and attack an enemy with a freeze ray

Medic gyro
CD: 20s
Duration: 15s
Selfheal: 2,000
Gyroheal: 1000
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
Laser Damage: 50
Interval: 2s

“Active”
Freeze ray
Shoots a freeze ray at an enemy inflicting chill
CD: 6s
Damage: 100
Chill: 1 1/2s

Purge gyro
Deploy a purge gyro equipped with a small stun gun that removes conditions from nearby allies and can weaken an enemy.

Purge gyro
CD: 20s
Duration: 15s
Conditions removed: 2
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
Gun Damage: 50
Interval: 2s

“Active”
Weakening shot
Shoot a dart at an enemy weakening him
CD: 6s
Damage: 100
Weakness: 2s

Gyro Bullwark
Deploy a bulwark gyro equipped with a small canon to apply Protection to nearby allies and daze enemies around it and grant allies aegis.

Gyro Bullwark
CD: 20s
Duration: 15s
Protection: 3s
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
Cannon Damage: 80
Interval: 2s

“Active”
Stomp!
The bullwark gyro stomps on the ground to daze nearby enemies and apply Aegis to allies
CD: 6s
Damage: 100
Dazed: 1s
Radius: 600
Aegis: 5s

Blast gyro
Deploy a blast gyro equipped with a small grenade launcher, granting you and your allies Retribution every few seconds and can charge in an enemy with a bomb.

Blast gyro
CD: 15s
Duration: 15s
Retribution: 3s
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
Damage grenades: 100
Interval: 2s

“Active”
Kamikaze!
seek out an opponent and then explodes and pushes back the enemy
Damage: 1,800
Kombo Finisher: Blast
knockback distance: 450

Shredder Gyro
Deploy a shredder gyro equipped with small axes, to whirl around you striking foes and using combo fields and is capable of unleashing a deadly hail of bullets.

Shredder gyro
CD: 15s
Duration: 15s
Damage: 50
Interval: 1s
Radius: 240
Kombo interval: 1/2s
Kombo Finisher: Whirl

“Active”
Shrapnel
Shoots small metal splinters in all directions
Damage: (10x) 1,000
Duration: 5s

Sneak Gyro Elite
Deploy a sneak gyro equipped with a small silenced pistol to provide stealth to nearby allies and has an unstable self-cloakingfield. Shoot only when engi is visible.

Sneak gyro
CD: 30s
Duration: 10s
Invis: 3s
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
Guns Damage: 40
Interval: 1s

“Active”
Cloak
The Sneak Gyro stealthes himself briefly but then explodes
CD: 10s
Duration: 3s

So this is roughly how I’d imagine gyros to be. useful little helpers that fire their weapons a little to help DPS and simply for the feelz and also have abilities that are more often usable than in super special situations.
for the elite I do not really thought of something that I completely like but I find it flawed and out of place anyway.

What do you think of my feedback? are you agree with me? How do you like my ideas for improvement?

Let me know all that

Thank you for reading through all of that, and I am sorry if there are some gramma errors, but english is not my native language.
thats all for now and I still hope you all have some fun with the Scrapper.

nekretaal.6485:

Here is What OP should ask for: A trait that gives minions a “Block” charge similar to guardian focus 5.

Then minions would be able to run around forever in (most) pulsing fields without getting touched (this protects against Longbow F1, wells, symbols, but doesn’t work against weapon cleaving, meteor shower, icebow 4 or locust swarm).

You would actually have to target the minion and hit it with an attack before it died to AoE soup.

If it works like you say that would be great too I guess, but im more worried about AoE in pve.. i think in pvp it is just fine.

gin.7158:

you’ve got to be kidding me ha3… If they buff MM necro even more, I will faceroll solo queue at PVP.

you might not have read my post maybe, but non of my suggestions affect pvp in any major way..

destroying your own minions wonth help in pvp, and make them aoe immun should only be applied to npcs and not other players, that would be op indeed.

Hello everyone and hello Anet,

!Imortant note: since many of you replied to this topic with concerns about pvp, this thread and problems with minions I bring up in it is mostly focusing on PvE!

Now as some of you have already noticed, and most people will still disagree with, minios with the corespec patch and the newly added better AI patch have been improved drastically. Not only did the corespec added some nice damage to them via deathmagic and also bloodmagic, but with the AI patch they finally attack the enemy I want them to attack.
As soon as I saw the patchnotes and tested it ingame I litterally shed a tear..
this is the first step to finally make minions somewhat viable.
there DPS is finally at a good point and more importantly VERY reliable!
I even did fraktals with my MM Nekro, did not get kicked, and also did a fairly good amount of damage as even some of my teammates had to agree when I was killing a boss solo after everyone whiped, and killing trash so much faster then some other classes.

this all sounds pretty awesome right? maybe it will hype you enough to play a MM nekro?
do you like Minions now? yeah? thats good men, thats reeeeal good.

SADLY THOUGH.. there are some HUGE issues why it isnt playable still.. mainly 2 points that needs Anets attention if they care about minions even a tiny bit.

1. Minions die to everything.. everything? everything!
In any lategame scenario there comes a point in a fight where almost every boss in the game fires huuge areas of AoE at your team.. as a player you can dodge that.. as a minion.. well.. you die.. everytime instantly..
there is a absolute simple solution to this, or a more complex one which I will go over in just a minute..

the simple solution: make minions immune to every AoE attack or at least give them 90% damage reduction to AoE abillity. this is a thing the MM Nekro needs to not be laughed at and people dont be like: “oh you use minions? so you lose half your dps on every boss? way to go men” -kicked.
note: this should only affect PvE content

the complex solution: this would be much more appreciated IF you can code this, I am not a coder so I have no clue about those things, but it would make it so you still need some skill to play.
make it so that if there is an aoe target at you and it hits you (the necromancer) it will also hit any minion in its aoe. But if you are not standing in that aoe or dodge it or block it, the minions insinde the AoE wont get damage aswell. So that they are kinda bound to your skills of dodging in regards of getting hit by an AoE, that would make for a fine solution.. again if it is codeable..

now dont get me wrong here, I dont want minions to be invincible.. they should still get full damage from singletarget enemy attacks and cleave damage.. they just shouldnt die to every ground targeted attack from a boss.
And this shouldnt be a trait or something, this needs to be a core function!

2. Minions can still be stupid, so I want to punish my slaves for beeing stupid
in some scenarios minions in general can be annoying to deal with, sometimes when you want to corner stack or when you are trying to get an enemy into a specific spot, minions run over there, keep the aggro and the enemys is out of place..

want I want for this problem, no what I demand, is give us Nekro F2 skill “KILL ALL THE MINIONS!” <- named exactly like this.
No but seriously, minions can get annoying and sometimes you need to get rid of them. A F2 skill to kill all active minions could only appear if you have a active minion, this can not only be useful to get rid of them but also you can do some damage with it and (maybe?) get some use out of Death Nova(maybe?).

And now for the most important change of them all!!! Give flippers to all our Fleshgolems!!!
I dont care how ugly you make his animation or dont give him a animation at all, I want my golem under water! not necessarily because i need it underwater, but for the sole fact that it dies EVERYTIME I dip my toe into the water.. aaargh!

there are some other issues I have with minions, like the blood fiend heal should be an attack of him healing you for some value instead of sacrificing it (lowering your dps), or missing a valuable third utillity minion.. but non of those matter if we can finally get the changes above.

so PLS Anet, give minions the last bit of lovethey deserve, as you will hopefully do with engineer.
what do you guys think about my suggestions? would you play minions? are you playing with minions right now? what are the reactions you get when playing minions in a group?
Let me know!
thanks for reading!
/greetz Smoky

EDIT: one thing I forgot to mention.. Minios should also heal back up right after you are out of combat instead of 8 seconds later…